Speaker 1: With due apologies to the people who own a cat,
Speaker 1: you know, ferret, turtle, goldfish, whatever, there actually seems to
Speaker 1: be a unique benefit to dog ownership. Welcome to one
Speaker 1: day University Talks with the world's most engaging and inspiring
Speaker 1: professors discussing their most popular courses. This podcast is your
Speaker 1: chance to discover some of our top rated lectures on
Speaker 1: your own schedule. I'm Steven Schragis, and this episode is
Speaker 1: going to the dogs, or more specifically, human's obsession with
Speaker 1: dogs and why we consider them part of the family.
Speaker 1: But if you're a cat person, don't worry. We've got
Speaker 1: some interesting research for you too. Professor Katherine Sanderson recently
Speaker 1: gave a one day university lecture titled Dogs and Humans
Speaker 1: Why has this bond been so long lasting? She's the
Speaker 1: chair of Psychology at Amherst College and her research has
Speaker 1: received grant funding from the National Science Foundation. Catherine is
Speaker 1: fascinated by the relationship between humans and dogs, and yes,
Speaker 1: she's got a furry family member at home. I would
Speaker 1: have to admit that I am a dog person, and
Speaker 1: my husband and I kind of have a joke about
Speaker 1: that because for years I've said I'm really not a
Speaker 1: dog person, But I love dogs. I currently have one dog,
Speaker 1: who is the third dog that I've had, and I
Speaker 1: will say that dogs consistently bring me and my family
Speaker 1: lots of joy, lots of happiness, and I look forward
Speaker 1: to sharing lots of scientific information with the listeners. Speaking
Speaker 1: of scientific information, you opened your lecture with some statistics
Speaker 1: which I wrote down. Ninety four percent of dog owners
Speaker 1: consider their dog part of the family. Okay, forty three
Speaker 1: percent of dogs sleep in their owners beds, thirty two
Speaker 1: percent celebrate their dog's birthday. Sixty five percent of dog
Speaker 1: owners take more pictures of their dog than their significant other.
Speaker 1: Here's the big one, though, A hundred percent of dogs
Speaker 1: receive a holiday gift. Can you elaborate on that one
Speaker 1: a bit, because that's surprised me. So what's funny to
Speaker 1: me is the one that surprises me is that ninety
Speaker 1: four percent of dog owners consider their dog apart of
Speaker 1: the family. And that surprises me only in that I'm like,
Speaker 1: who are the six percent of people who do not
Speaker 1: consider their dog a part of their family? But I
Speaker 1: will say that overwhelmingly, what the research shows is that
Speaker 1: people very much do consider their dog a part of
Speaker 1: their family and so therefore, when there's a holiday, it
Speaker 1: makes sense that you are celebrating that dog with a
Speaker 1: gift as much as you are with your children and
Speaker 1: your family members. And to me, that really illustrates the
Speaker 1: extent to which will really do embrace having a dog
Speaker 1: as part of their family. These statistics made me wonder
Speaker 1: how long has the scientific community been studying dogs? Is
Speaker 1: this like a relatively new field. So it's not a
Speaker 1: relatively new field in terms of the science, but I
Speaker 1: think it's very much a new field in terms of
Speaker 1: the psychology. So people have certainly examined owning dogs, the
Speaker 1: benefits of dogs, the sort of evolutionary features of moving
Speaker 1: from wolves to dogs, and so on within biology, and
Speaker 1: in particular, what are different features that distinguish dogs, you
Speaker 1: know now versus historically, or dogs from wolves, or frankly
Speaker 1: dogs from other kinds of animals. But I will say
Speaker 1: that in terms of psychology, this is a relatively new field,
Speaker 1: and I think it really sort of took off in
Speaker 1: part because of the growing awareness that dogs weren't just pets,
Speaker 1: but the dogs also have some real and tangible benefits
Speaker 1: to happiness and health, which I think we're going to
Speaker 1: get into a little bit later. Okay, we are going
Speaker 1: to get into that, but let me just add the
Speaker 1: non psychology part, the relationship between wolves and dogs and
Speaker 1: how that is where it all started. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that, right, So, that is
Speaker 1: actually something really interesting, and to be perfectly honest, is
Speaker 1: within biology really not within psychology. But what the research
Speaker 1: suggests is that years ago, thirty thousand or so years ago,
Speaker 1: wolves begged humans for food, so that was a clear
Speaker 1: benefit to the wolf. However, they also assisted humans with
Speaker 1: hunting and therefore it became kind of a symbiotic relationship.
Speaker 1: It's also clear that wolves and then eventually dogs provided
Speaker 1: body heat and comfort. We've heard about dogs providing transportations,
Speaker 1: so dog sleds with lots of different dogs providing an
Speaker 1: opportunity for humans to not have to walk through snowy
Speaker 1: ground but in fact to be pulled. So all of
Speaker 1: that suggest that dogs were beneficial to survival for humans.
Speaker 1: And over time there became this domestication and also selective
Speaker 1: breeding of dogs, which led to this genetic divergence between
Speaker 1: wolves which stay as wild animals, and dogs which became domesticated.
Speaker 1: And we really see this divergence happening, and increasingly dogs
Speaker 1: have changed in terms of their features. We can tell
Speaker 1: particular distinctions in that dogs, unlike wolves, but also unlike
Speaker 1: horses and cats and so on, seem to show particular
Speaker 1: features such as an ability to do what we call
Speaker 1: mutual eyegazs, to literally stare into somebody's face. It's basically
Speaker 1: right above your eyebrows, and it's also right above your
Speaker 1: dogs the equivalent of eyebrows, and this is a particular
Speaker 1: muscle that allows us to do eye gaze. So humans
Speaker 1: have it, babies have it, dogs have it. Wolves do not.
Speaker 1: So this suggests that this muscle, in fact, is a
Speaker 1: key part of allowing the ability to do mutual eyegays,
Speaker 1: to stare into somebody else's eyes, and this is an
Speaker 1: example of the kind of differentiation between dogs and humans.
Speaker 1: What's also particularly interesting here is that this is something
Speaker 1: that we see as representing intimacy. So we stare into
Speaker 1: the eyes of somebody who we love, who we care about.
Speaker 1: Parents stare into the eyes of their babies, We stare
Speaker 1: into the eyes of our romantic partners. And this ability
Speaker 1: to do mutual eye gaze with our dogs is really
Speaker 1: a clear sign of intimacy and attachment. Now let's move
Speaker 1: on to this psychology of it all. There are actual
Speaker 1: health benefits to owning a dog. Why don't you tell
Speaker 1: us about that. So some of the most clear evidence
Speaker 1: within the field of health psychology is that, in fact,
Speaker 1: the presence of dogs reduces stress. And they've studied this
Speaker 1: in a lot of different ways. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I find most intriguing here is that you
Speaker 1: see this evidence with even very young children. So children
Speaker 1: who are in the presence of a dog actually show
Speaker 1: lower heart rate, reactivity, blood pressure when they're doing something stressful, like,
Speaker 1: for example, taking a math test. We know that with
Speaker 1: people who have PTSD, being paired with a service dog
Speaker 1: also reduces their symptoms, and in fact, this is at
Speaker 1: some levels as beneficial as medication. So what we know
Speaker 1: is that the presence of dogs is really beneficial in
Speaker 1: terms of reducing levels of physiological arousal in ways that
Speaker 1: clearly are beneficial in terms of stress. Let me delve
Speaker 1: into that a little more. I've heard you talk about
Speaker 1: putting dogs in an MRI machine. Not an easy thing,
Speaker 1: I bet, but that's an intriguing thing to think about.
Speaker 1: That image is hard to get out of your head.
Speaker 1: So this is really interesting research, and I share your
Speaker 1: admiration for any researcher who is going to take the
Speaker 1: time to allow a dog to get comfortable enough to
Speaker 1: go into an fMRI machine. But what they've done in
Speaker 1: these studies is they've put dogs in fMRI machines and
Speaker 1: then they've studied patterns of brain activation in response to
Speaker 1: different kind of stimuli. And what that research has shown
Speaker 1: is that dogs actually process words and emotions in the
Speaker 1: brain in a very similar way to what you see
Speaker 1: with humans. And so what this means it is, at
Speaker 1: some level, dogs are actually having emotional reactions in ways
Speaker 1: that are very similar to humans. Dogs, for example, can
Speaker 1: distinguish different kinds of emotional expressions on people's faces, so
Speaker 1: they can tell the difference between, for example, fear and sadness,
Speaker 1: or or happiness and so on. And so this means
Speaker 1: that the part of the brain that is activated for
Speaker 1: a dog when seeing particular emotional expressions actually looks very
Speaker 1: much like what you see in terms of how emotion
Speaker 1: expressions are processed in humans brains. So dogs can understand
Speaker 1: us or is that too simplistic a statement? I think
Speaker 1: on some level, dogs really can understand us, and dogs
Speaker 1: can key into probably very very subtle cues. So we've
Speaker 1: known for a long time, and anyone who's owned a
Speaker 1: dog would already be aware of this that dogs rely
Speaker 1: heavily on their sense of smell. So dogs rely on
Speaker 1: smell to recognize someone in a way that most people,
Speaker 1: of course do not. So that's an example of how
Speaker 1: dogs are actually queuing into things on some level better
Speaker 1: than humans can. So in some senses, dogs may be
Speaker 1: able to perceive things like stress or anxiet, whether that's
Speaker 1: measured in facial expression or scent. It's why researchers have
Speaker 1: used dogs to sniff out bombs or explosives or drugs
Speaker 1: in airports, why in some cases researchers and medicine are
Speaker 1: actually looking at dogs as being able to smell signs
Speaker 1: of ovarian cancer before these signs are actually evident in
Speaker 1: screenings that people would actually go through. So on some levels,
Speaker 1: dogs may actually have better abilities to pick up on
Speaker 1: subtle things than humans do. What about though, recognizing words
Speaker 1: and language. Can you talk to your dog and they
Speaker 1: understand you, I think at a low level absolutely so.
Speaker 1: In fact, the example that I always give with students
Speaker 1: in my intro to psychology class is that we speak
Speaker 1: to dogs exactly in the same way that we speak
Speaker 1: to babies. So if you talk to a dog, you'll
Speaker 1: say do you want to go for a walk, and
Speaker 1: you won't say do you want to go for a walk,
Speaker 1: And that's exactly the kind of speech that we use
Speaker 1: when we talk to babies. For years, as an undergraduate,
Speaker 1: I actually did research with language acquisition as an undergraduate
Speaker 1: at Stanford. This is what my undergraduate honor thesis was
Speaker 1: on and what that research showed, even way back then
Speaker 1: was that we use this particular pattern and intonation of speech.
Speaker 1: At the time that I was in college, it was
Speaker 1: called Mothery's We actually now call it parent ease within psychology.
Speaker 1: But this is exactly how we speak to dogs. That
Speaker 1: we accentuate with a high pitch, the word that is important,
Speaker 1: do you want to go for a walk? Do you
Speaker 1: want to go for a ride in the car? That
Speaker 1: These are all examples of things that influence how we
Speaker 1: speak to dogs. Now, it's also clear that dogs can
Speaker 1: understand that. If we look at what we name dogs,
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly many of the most popular dog names have this
Speaker 1: ability to do that kind of sing songy speech. So
Speaker 1: lots of dog names end with why so Daisy, Lucy, Molly, Buddy, Charlie, Rocky.
Speaker 1: I've just given you six three female names, three male
Speaker 1: names that are the most popular puppy names. And there's
Speaker 1: a reason for that that we in fact believe that
Speaker 1: dogs can understand their names easier when they have this
Speaker 1: kind of sing songy speech. So dogs can pick up
Speaker 1: on their names, but dogs can also pick up on
Speaker 1: other kinds of words that we're using in the environment.
Speaker 1: I never heard anything like that that is really interesting
Speaker 1: about the general area of dog names. Can you get specific?
Speaker 1: I know you have dogs, How have you named your dogs?
Speaker 1: What was your thought process? Yeah? So I love that question,
Speaker 1: and I will say that I have had three dogs.
Speaker 1: The first one was called Hoby. You can imagine that
Speaker 1: ended and why. The next one was called Daisy. Our
Speaker 1: third dog is called Lily. And literally two weeks ago
Speaker 1: I started fostering a dog and that dog was given
Speaker 1: to me with the name. So the dog arrived with
Speaker 1: the name, and I was told this dog's name is
Speaker 1: john and I immediately you can probably predict where I'm going.
Speaker 1: I immediately changed that dog's name to Johnny. So it
Speaker 1: was not my dog. It was a loner dog, a
Speaker 1: temporary dog that I was fostering a puppy. But I
Speaker 1: immediately started calling him Johnny because I wanted him to
Speaker 1: learn his name, because that actually makes it easier for
Speaker 1: him to be responsive to his future owner. So we
Speaker 1: literally started calling him Johnny, and I am delighted to
Speaker 1: report that he was adopted and his new owner is
Speaker 1: going to keep calling him Johnny. After the break, Catherine
Speaker 1: tells us how your dog may help you live longer,
Speaker 1: and the difference between dog and cat owners. Owning a
Speaker 1: dog seems to affect people's life expectancy, how long they're
Speaker 1: going to live. What's going on there, So this is
Speaker 1: one of the most practically important findings. And what the
Speaker 1: research shows, in fact, is that owning a dog actually
Speaker 1: decreases somebody's risk of dying in a given year about
Speaker 1: twenty four percent, and the benefit of dog ownership is
Speaker 1: actually even greater thirty one percent for people who have
Speaker 1: already had a heart attack or a stroke, suggesting that
Speaker 1: for people who are at a more medically fragile point,
Speaker 1: the benefits are particularly strong. I will also note that
Speaker 1: that study I just described is worldwide so this is
Speaker 1: not a uniquely American finding or Western culture kind of finding.
Speaker 1: It seems to be that there is a benefit, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: from dog ownership. Are there other health benefits? People who
Speaker 1: own a dog tend to have lower rates of of
Speaker 1: blood pressure, they tend to have higher overall mood, So
Speaker 1: it seems to be sort of broadly beneficial, not just
Speaker 1: in terms of life expectancy, so yes, in terms of
Speaker 1: life expectancy, but also very clearly there seem to be
Speaker 1: benefits in terms of psychological wellbeing as well. And the
Speaker 1: same thing is true if you own a cat, or
Speaker 1: a fish or a hamster, right who, With due apologies
Speaker 1: to the people who own a cat, you know, ferret, turtle, goldfish, whatever,
Speaker 1: there actually seems to be a unique benefit to dog ownership.
Speaker 1: So we actually don't see evidence for the unique benefits
Speaker 1: of any other kind of pet other than dogs. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it means there is
Speaker 1: not yet scientific data I can point to that supports that. Catherine,
Speaker 1: you've described yourself as a dog person, proudly as a
Speaker 1: dog person, but a lot of our listeners would call
Speaker 1: themselves cat people. You want to tell us a little
Speaker 1: about the difference between a cat person and a person
Speaker 1: and how you contrast them. Sure, a great question, and
Speaker 1: so I'll say a couple of things about that. And
Speaker 1: I'll also say, in the interest of full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: also have a cat. So in addition to having dogs,
Speaker 1: I also have a cat and have had a cat
Speaker 1: for a very long time. Different cats, but currently I
Speaker 1: have a cat as well. So I'll say a couple
Speaker 1: of different things. One, what the research shows is that
Speaker 1: some of the unique benefits of having a dog maybe
Speaker 1: due to things that we do with dogs that we
Speaker 1: don't do with cats. So, for example, we walk our dogs.
Speaker 1: Most of us do not walk our cats. So when
Speaker 1: we talk about the benefits of dog ownership as opposed
Speaker 1: to cat ownership, in all honesty, it may be that
Speaker 1: dogs are kind of a proxy for exercise. So we
Speaker 1: have a dog, and therefore we walk it. And so
Speaker 1: it's really not that the owning the dog is the
Speaker 1: good thing in terms of health or longevity. It's really
Speaker 1: that walking is something we are much more likely to
Speaker 1: do with dogs than cats, and that's where you're getting
Speaker 1: the benefit. Relatedly, when you walk with a dog, you
Speaker 1: get human connect action because overwhelmingly when you're walking with
Speaker 1: the dog, you meet other people and they say, what's
Speaker 1: your dog's name, how old is your dog? What kind
Speaker 1: of dog is that? And so it also may be
Speaker 1: that dogs are kind of giving us access to some
Speaker 1: kind of a social network in a way that cats
Speaker 1: do not. I've also talked about dogs as giving us
Speaker 1: unconditional love, and frankly, there are lots of people who
Speaker 1: would say, my cat does that for me as well.
Speaker 1: And so people who feel that they have a connection
Speaker 1: with their cat and their cat is responsive to them,
Speaker 1: that their cat also recognizes their voice, recognizes their footsteps,
Speaker 1: and so on. For people who have that sort of
Speaker 1: a relationship with their cat, you may in fact beginning
Speaker 1: similar benefits. Now, when you gave this lecture, the other
Speaker 1: thing that jumped out to a lot of people was
Speaker 1: the idea of jealous dogs, which you confirmed dogs can
Speaker 1: get jealous. There's been research you want to tell us
Speaker 1: about that I do, and that is a really interesting finding.
Speaker 1: But what they did in the study act actually created
Speaker 1: fake dogs, but realistic looking fake dogs, and they had
Speaker 1: pet owners pay attention to, hold, talk to, etc. These
Speaker 1: fake dogs, and that actually seemed to bother their actual dog.
Speaker 1: This again is an example of something that is exactly
Speaker 1: what you see in terms of babies, so very young babies.
Speaker 1: If a mom or a dad is holding another baby,
Speaker 1: babies will show jealousy. They'll really react to that. And
Speaker 1: dogs seem to do exactly the same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: They come over, they kind of insert themselves between you
Speaker 1: and the even fake dog. So they are having a
Speaker 1: very human response to having their attachment figure paying attention
Speaker 1: to someone else. So dogs again very much like babies
Speaker 1: in lots of ways. Well, Catherine, as you know, I
Speaker 1: ran One Day University for fourteen years. You always like
Speaker 1: to start with a joke, and you usually finished with
Speaker 1: a joke. When you gave this talk, you finished with
Speaker 1: a joke, and that might be a good finish to
Speaker 1: this podcast. That is a great finish. Well, I'm actually
Speaker 1: going to end with two jokes. You're gonna get two jokes.
Speaker 1: So one, when I talk about the science of Happiness,
Speaker 1: which is my I think most popular talk at One
Speaker 1: Day University, I always described how dogs give us a
Speaker 1: particular kind of love, unconditional love, which everybody of course knows.
Speaker 1: And then I say, my husband and I have been
Speaker 1: married for what will now be thirty years this August,
Speaker 1: and I say, we have three kids, we have this
Speaker 1: two dogs. We have the following deal. If one of
Speaker 1: us leaves, the person who leaves takes the three kids,
Speaker 1: and the other person gets the dogs. And that has
Speaker 1: kept our relationship very strong. I've ended with that joke
Speaker 1: for years, but about five years ago a man came
Speaker 1: up to me, and I remember it vividly. It was
Speaker 1: in a talk I gave in Dallas, and he said,
Speaker 1: I have the perfect joke for you to end with.
Speaker 1: And this is in fact the joke that I now
Speaker 1: end with. And here's the joke. Imagine you come home
Speaker 1: from work one day and you put your wife and
Speaker 1: your dog in the trunk of a car. Then you
Speaker 1: drive around for an hour. At the end of that hour,
Speaker 1: when you open up the trunk, guess who's still happy
Speaker 1: to see you. And that joke really sort of epitomizes
Speaker 1: why dogs are so beneficial, because you know what, the
Speaker 1: dog would be still really happy to see you. Catherine,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for this. We really appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and I hope I see you again soon. More dogs
Speaker 1: is good for us all. That's the key takeaway. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us here at one day University. Sign up
Speaker 1: at our website one day you dot com to become
Speaker 1: a member and access over seven hundred full length video
Speaker 1: lectures from the world's finest professors. You can also download
Speaker 1: our app. There you can learn more about today's episode
Speaker 1: and watch Amherst Professor Katherine Sanderson's lecture on dogs and Humans,
Speaker 1: as well as her talks on the science of happiness,
Speaker 1: understanding intelligence, and more. Join us next time when we
Speaker 1: talk about wealth in America. We have been struggling as
Speaker 1: a society to make sense and figure out what to
Speaker 1: do about wealth inequality since the late nineteenth century. One
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